


When You Sleep, and When You’re Awake

by innocent_until_proven_geeky



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Gwen Cooper & Ianto Jones Friendship, Gwen Cooper & Jack Harkness friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned Ianto Jones, Mentioned Jack Harkness, Post-Series 03: Children of Earth (Torchwood)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innocent_until_proven_geeky/pseuds/innocent_until_proven_geeky
Summary: Gwen Cooper has many losses to mourn and only one person to mourn with.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	When You Sleep, and When You’re Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Am finally publishing a Torchwood fic! It only took me five years /hyp I have like, seven WIPs and can’t figure out what to do with them but I got hit by the sudden and desperate need to write This and,,, it happened! Thank you, brain!
> 
> A big shoutout to Ruairidh for just. Accidentally dragging me into this fandom. That’s it that’s all, I just appreciate them a Lot.
> 
> Title is from [Please Notice](https://open.spotify.com/track/36seMHoyXmLUNxcwzwjdF7?si=2RhyPQ8fRCK5bD1gA5dZAg) by Christian Leave which is secretly my favorite love song.

Gwen hasn’t been sleeping.

Rhys wakes up to quiet, snuffling breaths, interspersed with occasional sniffs. It’s not a surprise, anymore, to wake up to Gwen crying; with everything she’s been through in the past few years (and the hormones of the pregnancy, something at the back of his mind reminds him), she _deserves_ to have some sort of emotional release.

Like crying.

She doesn’t deserve to be alone, and so he sits up, wraps his arms around her slowly because he knows she’ll jump if he just goes for it. Probably smack him, too.

”Gwen?” he murmurs. “What is it, love?”

Rhys thinks he feels his heart break damn near in two when Gwen replies between sniffs, “I wasn’t enough.”

He doesn’t hate Jack Harkness, not anymore, but he thinks that he might kill the man if they ever cross paths again. Kill him, and repeat the process until he stays dead.

”Nonsense,” Rhys says, pulling his wife tighter to him. It’s harder, now, eight months along, but she goes willingly and wriggles around until she can bury her face in the space between his shoulder and his neck. “Of course you’re enough,” he continues. “You’re everything.”

It’s only in the dark of the night, sometimes, that he can make these confessions, but that doesn’t make them any less real. Still, he doesn’t think Gwen quite believes him.

He counts himself correct when Gwen mumbles, voice muffled by his pajama shirt, “He left me.”

Rhys will definitely be killing Jack when he sees the bastard again.

”You reminded him of Ianto, is all.” Rhys pretends his voice doesn’t break when he says Ianto’s name. He loved Ianto, there at the end, same as Gwen. And if he feels this way, he can only imagine what Gwen is feeling—what Jack felt, that had him convinced he had to abandon Earth, abandon Gwen.

He really will kill the man, but maybe not permanently. He finds that, maybe, he can forgive him, or at least try to understand.

”I miss him,” Gwen whimpers. Rhys doesn’t know if she means Ianto, or Jack, or both.

“I know,” he says instead, and strokes her hair. “Me too.”

They’re silent for a long time, the pair of them, and Gwen’s breathing is beginning to even out, huffing out in little snorts, when she relaxes against him and says, “I love you, Rhys Williams. And I am never leaving you.”

Rhys smiles, and feels tears prick at his eyes, and presses his face into Gwen’s hair, and holds her while she falls asleep.

And he knows that this doesn’t fix everything. In fact, perhaps it doesn’t fix anything. Gwen has lost and mourned too much and too many for one night and one sleepy conversation to heal it over. But she’s here, asleep, in his arms, and he has her and she has him, and she will never leave and neither will he—and for tonight, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo, thanks for reading! Check me out and send in prompts on Tumblr at [Ver Writes Things](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ver-writes-things) or you can email ver.writes.things@gmail.com.


End file.
